Includes bibliographical references and index.

$a Part I Managing Knowledge into Competence: 1: Ron Sanchez: Managing Knowledge into Competence: The Five Learning Cycles of the Competent Organization. Part II Individual Knowledge and Individual/Group Learning Interactions: 2: Yasmin Merali: Building and Developing Capabilities: A Cognitive Congruence Framework; 3: Johan Stein and Jonas Ridderstrale: Managing the Dissemination of Competences; 4: Petteri Sivula, Frans A. J. van den Bosch, and Tom Elfring: Competence-based Competition: Gaining Knowledge from Client Relationships. Part III Group Knowledge and Group/Organization Learning Interactions: 5: Steffen P. Raub: Towards a Knowledge-based Framework of Competence Development; 6: Charles Baden-Fuller and Henk Volberda: Dormant Capabilities, Complex Organizations, and Renewal; 7: Fiona Murray and Nicolay Worren: Why Less Knowledge Can Lead to More Learning: Innovation Processes in Small vs. Large Firms. Part IV Organizational Knowledge and the Management Function: 8: Frans A. J. van den Bosch and Raymond van Wijk: Creation of Managerial Capabilities through Managerial Knowledge Integration: A Competence-based Perspective; 9: Max Boisot and Dorothy Griffiths: Possession is Nine-tenths of the Law: Managing a Firm's Competence Base in a Regime of Weak Appropriability; 10: Philippe Lorino: A Pragmatic Analysis of the Role of Management Systems in Organizational Learning; 11: Ron Sanchez: Product, Process, and Knowledge Architectures in Organizational Competence.

$a Two themes have become epicenters of new management thinking in the late 1990s: knowledge management and competence-based approaches to strategic management. These two themes share a common interest in identifying important forms of organizational knowledge and in understanding processes through which knowledge can be transformed into organizational capabilities and competences. Knowledge Management and Organizational Competence draws on the latest research by a number of noted management scholars. It presents new insights into various kinds of knowledge that are of value to organizations, organizational interactions that can create strategically useful knowledge, alternative processes for managing knowledge, and approaches to integrating key forms of knowledge into organizational processes of competence building and leveraging. The papers in the volume collectively define a powerful conceptual framework for understanding organizational knowledge and its central role in building and leveraging competences. They present well articulated, logically consistent conceptualizations that will provide new theoretical impetus for management researchers, while at the same time providing case studies and examples of practical applications that suggest useful new methods and tools for management practitioners.